


if the sky comes falling down

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Framework, Space Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 17:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11063754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: Fitz and Daisy acknowledge some pain and figure out how to move forward together.





	if the sky comes falling down

for more Fitz Daisy Post-Framework Hurt Comfort, see [x](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10558250) [x](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7295626/chapters/23770443) [x](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10698444) [x](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7295626/chapters/24188559)

-

It was a cold morning on the Space Prison. It was so cold, in fact, that Daisy had given up on sleep and sought out her warmest jacket and a long walk – as long as she could get, in this place. It was early morning, or so she guessed from the dim lighting, since it was always night out here. It was early enough, she knew, that she was surprised to find Fitz awake in one of the hallways, scratching at the wall with what appeared to be a knife. Slowing down, concern clutching at her chest, Daisy tried to catch his eye. 

“Hey…Fitz…” she greeted slowly, not sure what state she’d found him in. “Are you okay?” 

“Yes,” he assured her, so calm it was in itself unnerving. He turned to her with a soft smile on his face and she glanced at the wall where he’d been carving; not symbols, but a word. _Vijay Nadeer._

“Are you sure?” Daisy checked. “Because this place…” 

“I really am okay,” Fitz promised, standing up and looking a little less crazy when the light hit his eyes a different way. They were still haunted and heavy, but no longer seemed so distant. “It’s actually kind of therapeutic up here.” 

“Really?” Daisy frowned. “I’m still pretty sure it’s some kind of messed up social experiment.” 

“Actually,” he said, “maintenance, life support… it’s very calming.” 

Daisy nodded. She was glad he hadn’t said it was _what he deserved_ or some rubbish like that. Although, given the nature of the names he’d been carving – and the fact that he’d been carving them at all – still gave her cause for concern about his guilt levels. 

“What’s that about?” she wondered, gesturing toward it. 

“It’s a Wall of Valour. Sort of,” Fitz explained, and suddenly it made sense. “I mean usually, the Wall of Valour’s just for certified Agents but… it felt right. It’s helping me feel better.” 

“And our beloved overloads haven’t smote you for damaging their property or something?”

“I don’t think our ‘overlords’ care what we do here, Daisy,” he pointed out, laughing a little at the name she’d given their faceless commanders. “We do the work, we get to therapise ourselves on our own terms.” 

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” 

“Sure it is. I mean, none of us is ever going to go to a real therapist, are we? So instead, we get months of monotony in Space Prison to sort ourselves out.”

Daisy narrowed her eyes.

“You know prison is… a _punishment,_ right?”

“It doesn’t have to be.” 

Daisy wrapped her arms around her torso as she followed Fitz down the Wall- past _Jeffrey Mace_ and _Lincoln Campbell_ and a few others she didn’t quite catch - to where he must have started. A small bag rested there, leaning against a blank space, and Fitz dug inside it and pulled out a sketchpad. A drink bottle and charcoals threatened to spill out too and Daisy’s frown deepened. 

“Where did you get all that?” 

“I told you,” Fitz insisted. “They don’t care what we do, as long as we do the work. I told them I needed a sketchbook, they gave me one. I didn’t tell them what for and so far, nobody’s asked.”

Daisy pressed her lips together. 

“Well, that’s just a tee-up, isn’t it?” she pointed out. 

“I’m glad you asked.” Fitz smiled. It faded quickly, though, as he returned his attention to the content of the book. He paged through it with focus, but not much subtlety, and Daisy caught a few screaming faces, angry scratches, twisted trees. A few kinder things too, though. A stream in a forest. Jemma’s face. Her own. 

“Fitz…” 

Daisy trailed off as Fitz began to carefully tear a page from the book. It bore a surprisingly realistic likeness of her face, smiling a little, with her nose crinkling not unlike it did as she first took in the image. 

“Why are you showing me this?” she wondered. 

“Not showing,” Fitz corrected. “I’m _giving_ it to you. It’s… a therapy technique.”

“You went to therapy? I mean. Sorry. But.” Her eyes couldn’t help asking, and Fitz brushed her off.

“I did, for a while after the uh, the Pod, but I picked this up before that. Believe it or not, I used to be quite the problem child. Yeah. I can feel the shock radiating off you.”  
  
Daisy smirked. She didn’t know much about Fitz’s background, but somehow, she’d picked up enough not to be surprised. And, she could relate. 

“Anyway, it really taught me a lot about handling my emotions and all that. One of the things that stuck was art therapy. Another was – when I’d hurt someone or done wrong by them I’d apologise through action. Through an act of service. Because of what you said before, I didn’t know if you’d accept an actual favour, so I decided to give you the picture instead. Though of course, you're welcome to the favour as well.” 

“It’s beautiful, thank you,” Daisy said, but she kept her eyes on Fitz. He didn’t look like he’d finished what he wanted to say. After a while, she probed him about it and, with an expression very much like he’d been caught out with a troubling secret, he looked up at her and asked quietly: 

“Can I show you something else?” 

Daisy led the way back to her room, since she assumed he wanted privacy, and Jemma would be in his bunk. Once inside, Fitz let out a deep breath and turned the sketchbook back toward her. On a page separate from the one he’d torn out, there were more pictures of her, most of them more stylized and roughly drawn; all of them, struggling, suffering or in pain. Climbing up a steep cliff, in a pit, tied up, bleeding, calling out for help. Calling out for him. There was a double spread of it, and another double when she turned the page and the only relief was a standing figure with a fist raised to the sky, light shining around her, victorious.

Daisy’s jaw hung open, tears seeping down her cheeks as she felt the visceral pain that Fitz had laid out before her, and in turn was pulled back into her own pain from the Framework. Falling down the stairs. Unable to stand. Bleeding, bloody, dizzy and enraged, and more scared than she had remembered being at the time. Everyone was trying to kill her. Everyone she knew was evil. It hadn’t been real, but it had happened. It had hurt.

She looked up at Fitz with quivering lips, the question hanging in her mind again, _why are you showing me this?_  

“I know I hurt you,” Fitz said. “I know you’ll keep telling me it’s not my fault and eventually I’m going to have to accept that you’re right but the reality is, you got hurt and you wouldn’t have if not for me. So, for what it’s worth, I am sorry.” 

Daisy pressed her lips together and nodded, blinking back tears. 

“It’s worth a lot. So much. Thank you.” 

“Thank _you_ for getting me out of there.” 

“That was Jemma, and Radcliffe,” Daisy corrected. 

“They couldn’t have done it without you. And even though Jemma’s been trying, she couldn’t have meant what you meant when you said that we were going to stick together through all this. I know you’ve been here before and to come back to these feelings again, for me, it’s –“ 

“It’s what friends are for, Fitz.” 

“Sorry I haven’t been a very good one lately. Including the way I treated you when you came back. Honestly, if it hadn’t been for you, and this place, I’d be tempted to run away myself. It’s not as easy as it looks, to stay.”

“That it is not,” Daisy agreed. Her eyes trailed back to the heroic picture in the corner of the horrors, and Fitz noticed. 

“That one’s because I was proud of you,” he confessed softly. “I mean, I always am, but in there… Everything and everyone was messed up and trying to kill you and you still wanted peace, you still had hope. You persisted even when you could have died. For real. I thought that was pretty cool. So I drew it as a reminder, to myself. And to you, if you like.” 

Daisy smiled, tearing up now beyond sense and vision. 

“Come here.” She opened her arms, beckoning, but before he could fall into them she stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around him firmly. “I forgive you. Of course I do. But thanks for apologising anyway.”

“Love you,” Fitz murmured.  
  
“Love you too.” 

Fitz tightened his return hug and then they stood together for a long while in the silence, warmed by mutual understanding, forgiveness, and love.


End file.
